


Battle Scars

by N1ghtshade



Series: Pacific Rim scribblings [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm a sucker for these two fixing each other, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Recovery, Self-Harm, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 16:12:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13103847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/N1ghtshade
Summary: She only asks about one set of scars.





	1. Chapter 1

She only ever asks about one set of his scars. They’re the kind of marks she envies, in a way, because it means he’s done what she can only dream of. He’s been a pilot, she’s still the child staring at the Jaegers in awe and dreaming of being the hero inside one. Those are the battle scars that belong to legends. She doesn’t ask about the little white lines that are too familiar. They mean you failed, you weren’t strong enough, you gave up. She has those scars and she would trade them a thousand times for the others. The drivesuit lines mark a hero, like Stacker. The white lines on the wrists are for a failure, like her. She didn’t think it was possible for one person to have both kinds of scars, and it gives her a little hope. Maybe the scars she has now doesn't mean she can't someday carry the others. When they come back from the Breach, she can feel the circuits in her suit burned into her skin, and feels like somehow those little white lines ( _the failure, coward, try harder, you lived when everyone else died for a reason and you're failing, you'll never be good enough, you'll never be a pilot, never get rid of the monsters that took everything from you, not good enough_ ) should be gone. But they’re there, still, on both their wrists. She touches her own, and then Raleigh’s, and she can’t help thinking, _I’m still branded a failure_. He hears her thoughts, and he takes her hand and presses his wrist to hers, so the lines match up just like the circuits in their heads. _You are not a failure. You survived, and that’s what those scars prove. Those are battle scars too._


	2. Chapter 2

The first time was a mistake. Or at least that’s what he tells himself so he can stop hearing Yance’s damn voice in his head. _Rals, don’t do this to yourself. Please_. He’s had one too many (okay, more like three too many but it’s been as close to one year after Knifehead as he can get and he thinks it’s some cruel fucking joke the universe decided to play on him that he doesn’t even have a proper day to mourn on) and the bottle fell out of his hands. And when he fell off the stool after it a piece of glass sliced his arm open. It was an accident. The next time, it’s a razor blade, but that’s not something he can tell the voice in his head he wasn’t trying to do. _Rals, we can’t let that fucking monster kill us both._ He tries, he does. He doesn’t slice his skin open anymore. But the welders throw sparks and some nights the burns sting enough to feel at least a little like the way the drift burned him alive in Gipsy. Like the Kaiju Blue burned through Yance’s drivesuit. Some days he leans a little too close to the edges of the metal. Some days too close to the edge of the Wall. _Don’t do this._ He settles for the blood. _You lived, Rals. You piloted Gips all the way home. You’re strong._ _Stay alive. Do it for me, kid._

**Author's Note:**

> Mako strikes me as the type to punish herself for failure to accomplish her own goals, Raleigh to punish himself for being the one who lived. I like the idea of both of them having broken places that can help the other person heal.


End file.
